


One Among Us Isn't Human

by InsaneWeasel



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Benrey isn't human, Body Horror, Fake Science, Gordon and Benrey childhood friends but Gordon doesnt remember, Gordon meets Benrey early, M/M, OCs are just like red suits--def gonna die, Pre-HLVRAI, Unethical Black Mesa, Unethical Experimentation, Working for Black Mesa sucks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27193852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneWeasel/pseuds/InsaneWeasel
Summary: Gordon Freeman meets Benrey early when he switches departments involuntarily....A new position in the Bio-Wing of Black Mesa throws Gordon into some kind of corporate sabotage or escaped subject mess, and he has no idea what's going on, but at least his new friends are pretty decent. Even if he's pretty sure Tommy has some part in what happened, Benrey is just bad at his job and everyone seems to think he's also in on the mess.
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 20
Kudos: 174





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another AU 2/3 I worked on besides main stories. Hopefully juggling 4 fics' updates (3 being HLVRAI, 1 being Hermitcraft) will not at all go bad. The third AU too meh to think about publishin'. Mother's Love also works as a prequel to this one, but not necessary for understanding.
> 
> Also, my science background is Computer and Psychology, not Biology/Physics and such so BS Science time. Although, one of my coworkers is really into Chemistry and bomb-making, so if we need that I can ask. He's making a C4 Snowman for Halloween/Christmas.

Gordon was a 26-year-old man, reassigned from his primary duties and preferred job…on one screw up.

To be fair, the administration were jackasses and he really just happened to spill his soda on the high-tech supercomputer of someone in another department he didn’t know the name of. So, he was transferred. It was a given; this was a better than being fired. Gordon nodded and accepted the new Black Mesa ID and the department and demotion of his clearance with the grace of a kicked dog.

His new department was a shitshow.

They needed someone with a general knowledge of sciencey-BS and a good understanding of computers. Gordon really wasn’t that guy on the computer side of it all, but his new superior just shook his head.

The man looked, smelled and sounded like he had been smoking packs of cigarettes since 12. He had crows’ feet, graying hair and pock-marked skin. His dark-brown greasy hair framed his deathly looking face, white skin only graced with color by the bruising from countless nights of no sleep under his eyes.

He led the way to Gordon’s new work area without much comment. The man’s gait favored his left leg, his right one limping behind slower. The man leaned on his good leg and when his hands weren’t unlocking a keypad, they were hooked into the belt loops of his pants.

Despite his roguishness and a face fit to be an auto-repair guy, he was dressed in a clean and iron standard science lab coat and underneath, a pink-button up and black tie and slacks. 

He showed Gordon the software and handed him a tablet with a preprogrammed Excel-like program. “It’s easier than you think. Four hours monitoring the levels: report anomalies and keep an eye on the printouts. Four hours analyzing it all.” The man was clearly distracted. He hardly even looked at Gordon as he talked to him.

The man instead checked on an old machine that was beeping out a steady warning sound. “They hardly ever change. Write up when they do. Average the changes. Submit that shit. You know a bit about that. Took a few data classes, right? Saw your record; kind of glad we got someone who did.”

“Yeah, but not with this kind of material,” Gordon admitted.

“Don’t overthink it,” the man waved his concern away. “You’re monitoring a subject we have. Won’t ever see the damn thing, even if you were still Level 3,” Gordon grimaced. “But none of the subjects are that interesting. Just ugly bastards anyway. You’ll have some help from another scientist. This isn’t his main area, but he comes in here for analysis. Name’s Coolatta. He’s primarily over in Observation. He can help you if you need. Otherwise that, you’re on your own.”

“What happened to the last guy?” Gordon asked. He’d heard this department had been short-staffed for a few weeks now apparently due to an incident.

His new superior, Harlan, smiled. It was not a friendly look “He poked his head where he shouldn’t. He’s in the hospital now. Needed blood transfusions, metal plates installed in his leg, and is missing his left arm. Too bad he lost his health insurance from being fired due to breaking company policy. Do know we have a clause that prevents you from suing if it’s your fault,” Harlan said.

Gordon felt a tightness in his throat but swallowed around it. “Understood.”

“Good, good. Then you and I will get along just fine. I suggest Mr. Freeman, you do your job, and nothing else.”

“Yes, sir.”

Harlan left and Gordon glanced at the tablet. Fantastic.

He acquainted himself with the monitors and read the levels without any real understanding of what it meant. He could brush up on it later, he guessed, or ask the Coolatta guy.

And days passed just like this one. Gordon would sit idling in the office chair, rolling a pencil between his fingers or perfecting the ability to look hard at work while halfway dozing off. The work recording data was monotonous and soul-sucking. No colleagues to talk to, no soda machines or coffee machines nearby. Just the endless hums and beeps of machines.

His only reprieve was his lunch break and data analyzing. It was only usually partially better, except on days Tommy was there. Then it was monumentally better.

Tommy Coolatta was not society’s definition of normal, and he was the greatest and most thoughtful person Gordon had met at Black Mesa. He was a great empath, even if he lacked any ability to apply that. If Gordon broke down and cried, he was pretty sure Tommy would offer him a soda and awkwardly assure him it was not a big deal while looking anywhere but at him, and honestly, Gordon would be comforted, because he would know Tommy meant well.

He was also fun and brought up a lot of probably classified information.

Especially about his dog.

It had started innocent enough, but if you got Tommy going, he could recite information practically word for word from books, especially in the things he was passionate about.

Soon Gordon knew Sunkist was not wholly a dog, but a failed bioengineering experiment where Tommy’s dad had enough weight here to just let his son take home the dog. What Sunkist was originally meant for Gordon was unsure about. Tommy knew, but he stiffened up and fiddled with his hands nervously when vaguely pressed.

So, Gordon didn’t press. Instead, he just most of the time listened to Tommy.

“Sunkist is great! Today, when I took her on a walk to the dog park, she made friends with all the other dogs and even taught a very rowdy dog how to sit and shake for their owner! She’s very smart!”

“I believe it,’ Gordon said. He looked over his numbers, and then at Tommy’s where he was currently color-coding some of the fluctuations with pens. “Yo, what’s that for?”

Tommy showed Gordon his color-key. It had at least fifty different colors. “The emotions! I think that’s how he communicates. Whenever there’s certain changes in the normal pattern they coordinate to a behavioral change and I’m using it to decode what he—the subject—is feeling and trying to communicate!” Tommy said with a lot of enthusiasm. Gordon took his word for it, studying his key and how certain numerical changes aligned to certain colors. Despite the large amount of possible colors, most of the time it only stayed around a few.

“Want me to color code mine to match that so you can look over my half easier for Observation?” Gordon asked.

Tommy grinned. “Thanks, Mr. Freeman! You’re really nice! A lot of the other scientists think my theory is bad.”

“Well they suck,” Gordon said without pause, and it earned him a soft laugh from Tommy which he covered with his hand.

“They aren’t bad! They just don’t want to think of the subject as…having emotions,” Tommy clarified.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Gordon said, grabbing one of Tommy’s pens to outline a change.

There seemed to be a pattern to most of the changes, and a consistent return to some numbers. Even if the colors themselves didn’t work as a good tool to show behavior—if Tommy’s theory was wrong—they did highlight an average number that kept reoccurring. With all the dark blue how could he miss it. “So, what’s all the blue mean?”

Tommy glanced over at his current progress and frowned. “Oh…he’s not okay,” Tommy said. “He’s very upset.”

“Aw, that’s rough,” Gordon said. “What goes on in those experiments anyway, if you can tell me?” Gordon asked. He was half-expecting to hear about some small mouse who kept getting electrocuted on some weird behavioral test. He assumed most of the tests were on animals, even though it made him a bit uncomfortable to know that’s what he might be looking at.

“I’m not supposed to say,” Tommy said. Gordon nodded and let it be, but after a moment of fidgeting Tommy said. “They’re being extra cruel, because they think it’ll work more to get what they want. They want big results,” Tommy said vaguely, and his eyes darted to the door of the small room they sat in. “Sorry, I’d expand, but…”

“No, I get it,” Gordon assured him. “Sounds like a bunch of psycho scientists. Why are you in Observation. You don’t seem like you’d like it?” Gordon asked. He flipped to the next page and went on, noting down patterns on the spare sheet before color-coding it.

Tommy shrugged. “It was where my degree fit in best and once, I got up here, my dad said it was best I stay in this section. He said it’s important for my future,” Tommy said.

“That kind of dad, huh? Wanting the best career for you?” Gordon said. He smiled at Tommy, but nearly frowned when Tommy shook his head.

“No, he said something about surviving something,” Tommy said. “I don’t question my dad. He’s not very good at showing his emotions well either, but he knows a lot about what’s going to happen in the future.”

Gordon tried to figure out what Tommy meant, but then it hit him. “Oh, he’s on the board of directors!” Gordon nodded to himself. Maybe some departments were getting cut down later and Observation was a safe one.

“Yeah, he’s on that!” Tommy confirmed, and Gordon just chuckled. That explained. He continued his perusing of the numbers without much brainpower going in.

When he got off work, he was going to go Christmas shopping for Joshua. It was about two months early, but all those kids toys always vanished near the holiday, so he figured this time he’d start early. He came across another slew of blue and winced. Geesh, hopefully they put that mouse out of its misery soon enough.

…

Gordon came into work with a bottle of water and a readiness to sit and stare at the machines most of the first four hours. While his eyes were glazed over staring at the monitors, he was brainstorming how he was going to decorate his apartment for Joshua, and if Marla’s work schedule lined up with his. If Marla wasn’t off Christmas, then he supposed he’d get Joshua for Christmas and she’d get him for New Years, but if they were both off for Christmas, he’d probably let her take him for Christmas.

It was still a month away, but he figured he should start working it out with Marla now. It was always difficult, but Joshua was only five, and just liked having two Christmases.

Gordon glanced at the monitor and winced at the readout. It was spiking again. He noted it down to look at it later but ended up transfixed watching the numbers rise. Gordon glanced at his previous readings and chewed on his lip. It was awfully higher than normal, but hey, maybe they were doing some weird shit. Not like he got to know, unless Coolatta was feeling pretty generous.

He was just finding mild entertainment in the spiking numbers by challenging them by trying to guess when they’d level off when his tablet screen flickered. Gordon had it plugged in to charge but seeing the screen flickering and green bars running across it he immediately unplugged it. Gordon tapped on the tablet to make sure it was okay, but the screen blinked out.

Great, great. This wasn’t his fault. Hopefully they know that.

Gordon set down the tablet and went to examine the electrical outlet. He was on his hands and knees peering at it when the lights in the room and the monitors began to flicker. He paused and glanced around him, seeing nearly every machine in the room flickering. A mass power outage? Gordon stood up and glanced around the room, unsure what to do.

The power went out.

The red exit sign came on as the backup generators that ran them came on. Gordon pulled out his phone. It was 10:32 a.m. Gordon went to the door of the small room and opened it and peeked out. The red-emergency lights were on in the hallway, but no one else was around.

Gordon thought about taking a step out, but he spotted two security guards rushing past. One of the men stopped, turning to him. He recognized the one that kept jogging past as Barney Calhoun, a guard he’d had a few friendly conversations with, but the one that stayed was unfamiliar.

“Stay inside the room. The problem will be resolved shortly,” the man said curtly, and Gordon nodded. He backed up and closed the door as he heard the guard jog to catch up with Barney.

Weird. Whatever, Black Mesa had plenty of issues. Always some scientist doing something they shouldn’t.

Gordon sat on the chair and pulled out his Motorola to play a lame game of Tetris while he waited for the power to turn on. He was too antsy to focus on the game. Something about the red emergency lights and the eerie lack of the hum of the machines creeped him out.

Which was why the sudden noise of a door slamming shut outside scared him more than it should.

_Geesh._

Gordon stood up. He shouldn’t. I mean, it’s Black Mesa—what could it possibly be? Nothing that weird, right? Gordon crept to the door. After a moment of hesitation, he quietly opened it and peeked outside.

The hallway outside was only alight with emergency lights, their red glow casting an eerie look the dull gray. Gordon glanced the way the guards went and felt mildly startled, then relieved.

A security guard was walking back. A little slowly, which must mean it was not the world’s largest issue. Good, good. The man seemed distracted, his eyes drifting around the hallway slowly. Finally, they landed on Gordon. The man paused when he saw Gordon looking at him.

Barney? No, Barney didn’t look like that. The eyes were the wrong color and hair. Must be the other guy.

“Hey? Everything alright out there?” Gordon asked as the guard glanced away from him and to the red lights above.

“It’s fine.” The guard gestured to the emergency lights. “Uh, power should be back on in a moment,” the guard muttered and headed quickly back the way the set of guards had come from originally.

Gordon nodded and ducked back inside the room. The guard hadn’t been wrong. The power came on with a loud hum and the monitors and computer began to boot back up. Gordon couldn’t get the tablet back on, but he was able to relog onto the computers and boot up the correct software.

He pulled out a piece of graph paper from the drawer and decided he’d tell Harlan about the tablet, and just take the numbers on paper for the moment. They weren’t anywhere as high as they’d been before. Gordon hummed and his eyes flicked to the door. The guards had been heading to the nearby labs near him, maybe it was Observation that caused the power to go out.

Hopefully he’d hear about it from Coolatta.

…

On his lunch break he caught a snippet of conversation about what happened in Observation.

“Some sort of electrical malfunction. Fried all the things in the room…including the people,” a bioengineering scientist Gordon recognized as having seen worked in the lab near Observation. Travis Jobson, Gordon thought his name was.

Most everyone in the break room was watching Travis itching to hear more, even if some disguised it better than Gordon.

“No?” Travis’s friend Donald asked.

“Yup, but keep it hush-hush,” Travis glanced around him with a smirk and said. “All of you.”

One of the older scientists shook his head. “You should keep your mouth shut. Not like you understand shit. You just heard rumors from what Decontamination said.”

“Oh, shut it, Bubby,” Travis muttered. The forty-something stood up and grabbed a soda from the machine. “They should have shoved you in Observation, so we could be free of you from the Bio lab.”

Donald snorted, and Gordon saw Bubby narrow his eyes.

“Then who would have the brain cells to remember how to get the computers booted up again after the power outage? Not fucking your dumbasses,” Bubby said, and Travis’s face went red. He didn’t manage to get a good retort out before Bubby left the break room. He caught Gordon looking and just glared.

Gordon averted his eyes.

Bioengineering always had some drama going down.

Gordon never had to be around them before, but ever since his transfer, the nearest breakroom was near their labs. Ever since then, Gordon spent most of his break keeping quiet as the five scientists in bioengineering argued. Generally, it was Travis, Donald, Lisa, Tommy and Quinton.

Tommy was only in Bio when Observation had nothing for him. If Gordon asked Tommy, he’d hand wave it, but Gordon had to hand it to him. He was a jack of all trades and probably could be a project manager or higher up if he wanted to be.

Tommy never argued, but if he was present, he’d sit with Gordon and talk enough for Gordon to just nod his way through the lunch. Though even if Tommy never argued, it didn’t mean he wasn’t dragged into those arguments through some sort of mockery.

Sometimes Bubby would be in the break room.

Those days Gordon tried to escape the break room earlier, because it’d become a shouting match. Today, he was lucky. Travis was enjoying the attention and silence from the bioengineering scientists and some of the guys from R&D.

“Hey, was Coolatta in there?” Gordon asked.

“He called in sick today,” Lisa said. She was the nicest of the bioengineering scientists besides Tommy, of course. 

“A shame, we almost got rid of him too, finally,” Donald muttered, getting a chuckle from Travis.

Gordon just nodded, unwilling to get into an argument as Travis launched into a description of the state of the lab. As he left the break room, he almost ran into Bubby who was sulking against the wall. He caught sight of Gordon and pointed a finger at him.

“You.”

“Me?” Gordon looked around himself.

“You were in the computer room—what happened?”

Gordon shrugged. “I mean, I saw less than Travis. I was just watching the numbers tick up on the monitor when the lights went out.”

Bubby shook his head. “Unbelievable. What was the final reading? What was the measurement of—”

“I’m not sure,” Gordon said with a shake of his head. “I wasn’t really reading too hard. Just typing it all on the tablet then it all went out,” Gordon said. He was given a scathing look from Bubby.

“Useless,” Bubby muttered and walked off, back to the labs by the look of it.

Gordon was just glad Tommy hadn’t been in today. He’d hate for Tommy to have been caught up in whatever happened.

Gordon was heading to the room adjacent to the computer room for what looked to be a quiet four hours analyzing numbers when he nearly ran into Harlan. His supervisor shot him an annoyed look. “What happened to the tablet? I just tried to check the readings since there’s no backups on the computers and it’s absolutely fried?” Harlan gestured to the black screened tablet and now that Gordon had a good look, he could see signs of charring at the charging port. Maybe fried was more literal than he’d like to imagine based on Travis’s description.

“No clue. I had it charging and when the lights went out,” Gordon said, and gestured to the tablet, “that happened.”

“Damn it. We’ll have to see if we can run a recovery program. Surely the hard drive has some of the information before it went out. Nothing’s ever truly deleted,” Harlan muttered. He pushed past Gordon, probably about to go tear some tech guru from somewhere that actually knew how to do that. Gordon didn’t, and he didn’t plan to. Instead, he stopped by the lab, grab what numbers he did have, and got ready to run them.

It turned out to be even more boring than before. He thought he’d be trying to convey colors using his red and blue pen alone without Tommy’s box of pens, but turns out, he didn’t need to worry. He could tell there was no real patterns or anything to look at. The averages hardly ever did spike like they used to and only about…one—he checked his math twice—came close to the key Tommy gave him.

Maybe they shocked the mouse to death finally and somehow ended up dead too.

Yikes. That’s not ethical.

Gordon sure hoped Black Mesa had some great lawsuit protection from families.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tried publishing this earlier, but saving a draft chapter apparently doesn't let you do the correct pub date.

When his shift ended, Gordon dropped off the meager numbers he had in Harlan’s office and made his way back to the dormitories. The drive back wasn’t worth it today, and besides, tomorrow was Friday. Might as well save himself two hours of sleep and crash in his dorm room.

The dormitories definitely lacked some of what he liked at home, but he used his a few days of the week. Privacy and quiet was definitely lower. Level 3 status had a private bathroom, and they hadn’t revoked where he stayed at to throw him to the grungy sweaty bachelor roommate situation that was Level 2. Gordon really hated that full year of it enough to make the drive back to his apartment unless he was too exhausted to think.

He was changed into old sweatpants and a t-shirt and heading to a vending machine he knew was nearby when he spotted Tommy. The man must also live in the other wing of dorms in Level 3. “Hey, Tommy!”

Tommy, who had been also having the same idea as he, based on him loitering in front of the soda machine, nearly jumped into the ceiling. Must suck to be that tall. He turned quickly, but relaxed when he saw Gordon. “Oh hey, Gordon!” Tommy greeted.

“It’s a good thing you called out sick today,” Gordon said. “Observation had some sort of catastrophe,” he said as he approached, eying the drinks on the soda machine as he considered his options. Tommy nodded, but then asked:

“What happened?”

A little too late to have not known. Gordon side eyed Tommy and saw him fiddling with the sleeves of his sweater. He was gripping his can of orange soda tightly. Gordon brushed it off. Tommy might have had friends in Observation and just wanted to see what Gordon knew before he leaked anything classified.

“Dunno. Some sort of electrical malfunction? I had two people asking me about the numbers from before the system went down, but they’re gone unless Harlan finds a tech genius,” Gordon said. He chose a grape soda. He didn’t really like grape, but it seemed like a good idea. Did that count as fruit? Had he eaten anything healthy this week?

“Oh,” Tommy said quietly. He stepped aside to let Gordon grab his soda. “Gordon, can you keep a secret?”

Gordon fully stared at Tommy. He was fiddling with his can now, fingers twisting the tab on it until it fully came off. His other hand was bunched at his side, tapping rhythmically on his leg. Gordon nodded. “I can. Are you okay? I know it’d be hard losing your—”

“I knew it was going to happen,” Tommy said quietly. “I warned them! I told them—” Tommy cut himself off when a sharp edge of the tab cut into his finger. He quickly dropped it, bringing his finger to his mouth before stopping himself then, shifting uncomfortably. “Sorry, I’m just…” Tommy gripped his bleeding finger in his other hand. “I just told them, and they didn’t listen. So, I called in sick.”

Gordon could understand that, never to the extent it killed anyone, but in university had he ever had a team project that involved someone fucking him over, because they didn’t listen to him—yeah, like two times and with the same person. _Screw you James Gitzy; hell probably has better physics classes._ “No, no—don’t feel guilty. If you saw something going wrong and you did your best, then it’s not your fault Tommy. They should have taken you seriously,” Gordon said. Tommy nodded, but he looked pained and possibly bordering on crying. “Need a hug?”

“Yes,” Tommy said. He leaned into Gordon when Gordon hugged him. “I just wanted them to understand. I wanted it be…easier.”

“Life sometimes is really not easy,” Gordon said. “But you know what, if they were assholes, maybe it was for the best.” Tommy nodded and Gordon could sense the hug was over. Alright, Joshua was like that too. Short hugs worked best with him.

Tommy seemed a little better off. He took a sip from his can of soda and sighed. “Thank you, Gordon.” He then remembered something, a crease appearing in his forehead. “Who asked you about the numbers?”

“Weirdly Bubby, and then just Harlan.”

“Bubby?” Tommy asked.

“You know, the guy in Bio lab that’s like, I dunno, a transfer from another research facility or something? Older guy?” Gordon described. Tommy shook his head.

“I know Bubby,” Tommy said. “He’s very mean, but he means well most of the time! He likes doing his experiments alone. He’s just…not someone I thought was interested in Observation,” Tommy said thoughtfully.

Gordon didn’t know why either. He was normally over in experimental physics before all this which means he had no idea what the shit was in this sector of facility. This sector of the building was R&D Testing Lab which housed some weird shit from what Gordon had heard from another table at lunch multiple times, the Bio Lab which housed usually bioengineering scientists and some standard biologists who apparently just hated using the break room other than Bubby, and Observation which technically included the computer lab and small conference room he used for analytics, because apparently no one else cared for it, and then whatever went on in the Observation lab rooms.

All-in-all, Gordon pretty much felt like he moved planets, and everyone here talked in an almost familiar language that was just slightly off. Sure, he took one biology class in college, but like come on, he didn’t have a stellar background in chemistry like Tommy did enough to be able to understand it all.

“And Harlan’s your supervisor, right?” Tommy asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Gordon said. “He’s just grabbing one of computer scientists probably in Security to help. God knows they’re the unofficial IT to get the numbers off the computer since the tablet went bust in the electrical malfunction,” Gordon said.

Tommy nodded, but he was fidgeting with his hands again. “Oh. Well, it was nice talking with you, Gordon. See you tomorrow,” Tommy said, and he walked off back towards the dormitories, predictably in the other wing than Gordon’s.

Gordon decided he wanted a snack and lingered, staring at the snacks behind the glass wall until he caught someone else’s reflection. He glanced over his shoulder, seeing a security guard.

“Oh, sorry, were you buying something? Here I’ll—” Gordon moved aside, but the guard just stared at him. Then the guard’s eyes went to the tab on the ground where he picked it up, examined it, and then threw it in the trash. They stared at Gordon again.

“You shouldn’t litter,” they said.

“That was litter-ally not me,” Gordon said. Blank face from the guard. Whatever, he wasn’t going to take it seriously. Gordon sighed, and went back to staring at the snacks. “Sorry for the pun, my friend Tommy accidentally cut his hand on it and dropped it.”

“Dunno if I believe that,” the guard said. “What if you cut him with that?”

“With a soda tab?” Gordon snorted in disbelief.

“Yeah. You could be dangerous,” the guard said.

Gordon glanced at him in disbelief. He was in tennis shoes without socks on, sweatpants, a t-shirt with a picture of a cat on it from his mom and loose hair to his shoulders and glasses he really should replace. He looked more like someone who was stumbling around their college dorm drunk then he did like someone capable of mugging someone with a soda tab.

“Don’t you have an area to patrol or something?” Gordon questioned. The guard shrugged.

“I am patrolling.”

“Okay then, well. Sorry about the tab being on the ground,” Gordon said, and turned pointedly back to the snacks. He eyed the guard’s reflection still visible in the snack machine. The guard didn’t move. Gordon kept ignoring him and picked out some peanut-butter and chocolate wafer bars. His stomach wasn’t in it anymore, too anxious now from this impromptu stress for a guard just…profiling him as dangerous? How was he dangerous right now? He was literally just trying to buy a damn snack. Maybe he could understand back when he’d wear the HEV suits for tests, and he looked a little bit like some kind of lame robot, but now?

Gordon held up his nutter-butter rip off to the guard then gestured to his wing of the dorms. “I’m going back to my dorm. Night, man,” Gordon said. The guard put out a hand.

“No.”

“Why?” Gordon was getting upset.

“How’d blood get on that tab?” the guard asked.

“He cut his hand on it while fiddling with it. I already told you.”

“…”

“Can I go?” Gordon gestured back to his dorm.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Look. I will literally walk you through my entire life history to assure you I’m not capable of mugging someone with a soda tab if that’s what it takes for you to let me walk back to my room right now,” Gordon said, when he heard rapid footsteps and spotted Tommy again, looking panicked. He wasn’t looking at Gordon, but the guard.

He walked over to the both of them, looking between them. “Oh, there you are,” Tommy said.

“Yo,” the guard said. “Did you cut your hand on a soda tab?” the guard asked.

“Yes,” Tommy said. He looked at Gordon’s bewildered and slightly upset expression. “Sorry, Gordon. Gordon, this is my friend, Benrey. He’s…new at his job and he has trouble with…understanding what he’s supposed to do,” Tommy said.

“Yeah, well, no kidding. He’s interrogating me about blood on a soda tab,” Gordon said. Benrey was now fixing Gordon with a scrutinizing look like he was trying to find out if Gordon was hiding something from him. Jesus. Gordon thought, opening his soda. It wasn’t like he blackmailed Tommy after mugging him with a soda tab.

“Gordon what?” Benrey asked, his eyes leaving Gordon to look at Tommy.

“Gordon Freeman,” Gordon supplied. “I’m heading back to my room, guys,” Gordon said, squeezing past them best he could. “This was not fun.”

“Sorry, Gordon about Benrey!” Tommy apologized for him. Damnit Tommy. Gordon just shook his head, raising his hand in a wave to Tommy. Man, what was with Tommy and attracting assholes for colleagues. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Tommy exasperatedly explaining something to Benny or Benrey or whatever while Benrey was just…staring at Gordon. Cold gray eyes staring into his back.

Whatever. New guard could kiss his ass.

…

The next day, Gordon was told in a phone call due to the issue with the computer and a temporary shutdown of Observation, he had a paid morning off. Harlan said they were expecting to get some of the numbers from yesterday morning off the computer, so he’d have a short afternoon and be expected to go home sooner. Today was sounding considerably great. He decided to sleep in.

When he woke up, it was to someone knocking on his door not even 30 minutes later.

Gordon groaned and got up.

It was security guard dude again. Not cool.

“Can I help you?” Gordon said, rubbing his eyes.

“…you?” the guard said after a very, very long pause. During that paused Gordon had enough time to blink blearily, finish rubbing his eyes, half-cover a yawn and then push his glasses up his nose.

“Me?” Gordon asked.

The security guard, Benny, Bernie—Benrey, Benrey shook his head. He prodded Gordon in the chest with his finger. “Hm. Bbbbbbbbb,” the guard…made in consideration.

“Okay, look. I don’t know what problem we have, but we both apparently have a mutual friend in Tommy,” Gordon said, batting the guard’s hand away. “So, let’s not start any crap with each other, got it?”

“Okay,” the guard said.

And then just…wandered back off. Wait, no. No. He just woke Gordon up from; he was not getting off that easy. “Hey, wait a minute. Why’d you come here in the first place? How’d you know where my dorm room was?”

The guard looked at him. “Just knew.”

“How?”

“Guessed.”

“You cannot have possible guessed,” Gordon muttered to himself. “So, why did you come here?”

“Dunno,” Benrey said. He crossed his arms. “Was seeing if you…remember me?”

“From yesterday? I’d have to hit my head. Did you think I’d forget that whole incident?” Gordon asked. What a strange guy.

Benrey shrugged again. He looked away from Gordon, back down the hall. “You seem to have a shitty memory.”

Gordon just laughed incredulously. Seriously, where did this guy get off? Every second so far seems like he’d just been trying to get Gordon annoyed with him.

“Yeah, I remember you. Was that it?” Gordon asked. The guard nodded. “O-kay,” Gordon drew out. “Well, if that’s all. Can you at least wait like…until I don’t know, 10 a.m. to knock on my door next time?” Please do not let there be a next time.

Benrey nodded. Gordon just sighed and closed the door, throwing his glasses back on the nightstand and collapsing back onto his stomach in bed. What a weird guy. He was kind of familiar actually. Oh, Gordon knew where. He was the guard that must have been with Barney, from the Observation lab incident. It wasn’t that Gordon had a shitty memory then, it’d just been the bad lighting. Maybe the dude got it in his head Gordon somehow did all that fuckery.

Whatever. The only electronics crime Gordon committed was the one that got him in this department. He just shook it off and buried his head in his pillow. He was going to sleep. He’d wake up when he really needed too.

He didn’t end up getting more than an hour more in when his alarm clock went off. He slapped it and got up to make a quick brunch before he went down to Harlan’s office to grab whatever numbers he salvaged. They wouldn’t be all formatted so he might not get out of their early. He’d have to put them into a new table and plug them into the equations manually. Damn.

Gordon winced thinking about it. If he’d had any warning about that electronics malfunction like Tommy seemed to have known, he would have unplugged the tablet sooner. Nevertheless, Gordon was in Harlan’s office soon enough. He was handed a stack of papers with Harlan’s neat, but way too small of writing of the numbers as they were. Harlan still seemed upset and he was sipping a coffee that somehow did little to get the smell of smoke off his breath, instead mixing into one foul acrid smell. Too bad for him Harlan wanted to talk to him from one foot away.

“The data retrieval flash-drive is still in the computer. We should have the rest of the numbers by the end of the day. I’m going to need you to stay until it finishes and then finish the rest of the analysis. You’ll be paid overtime,” Harlan told him.

That was what made this whole conversation horrible, not the coffee-cigarette breath, though it certainly had an impact. “You’re kidding. You know I have custody of my son every weekend, right? And I’d like not to make the drive all the way back to my apartment dead tired. It’s a two-hour drive, Harlan.”

“Then you better hope that program gets done earlier,” Harlan said and then had the gall to wave Gordon off. “Get to it. Also, note the times when the spikes start showing up. You wouldn’t happen to know the time the power went out, do you?” Harlan questioned.

Gordon did, but in a moment of bitter annoyance: “Nope, no idea,” he said.

He walked out of the office with a groan, gripping the stack of papers and thinking how Harlan really was going to make one of his two best days of the week slightly worst. It better not take hours. More than ever he was glad Tommy was there when he got there, setting down the stack of papers with a groan.

“You cannot believe Harlan; that guy’s an ass,” Gordon muttered. Tommy raised an eyebrow. “He wants me to stay overtime to finish the damn documents after that data-retrieval program gets the rest. So, he expects me to stay until it’s done, and then get the analysis on it done.”

“I’ll stay and help,” Tommy said. “I have to do the reports on it after anyway, and I’d rather have it done today, than tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks, Tommy,” Gordon said relieved. They split up the process. Gordon got the numbers formatted into what the tablet’s excel program normally had them, and Tommy took them from there. He did his normal color coding and organizing of the averages without much preamble. They worked silently, but amicably until Gordon stretched his wrists and sighed.

“Hey, Tommy?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said, quickly going down the sheet of numbers. Lots of blue yesterday it seems. And some few spikes of red.

Gordon set down his pencil and straightened the papers. He had about five more pages of calculations to do. A break was needed. “Why does your friend Benrey seem to like, have it out for me?”

Tommy glanced up and too Gordon’s surprise he just shook his head. A small quirk of a smile on his mouth. “Benrey communicates very poorly.”

“Yeah? Well, I got that, but why did he like come to my room to just…ask me if I remembered him? It’s kind of weird, I don’t know. Does he think I caused that electrical malfunction?” Gordon questioned. Tommy hummed a low note and paused on a set of numbers. He glanced up at Gordon.

“He came to your room?”

“Yeah, this morning.”

“Huh,” Tommy switched pen colors again, back to the blue. “I think he felt bad about last night.”

“Really?” Gordon snorted. “He’s shit at apologies then. Oh well, guess I forgive him. He seems…well, not nice,” Gordon went back to his papers. “But I guess not anything awful.”

“You said you like video games, Gordon?” Tommy asked. “I have Halo 3 for the Xbox 360 in my dorm room. We could play together and then it might help you two understand each other,” Tommy suggested.

Gordon considered it, but he just shrugged. “Maybe another day, I don’t think I’ll properly be back in the dorm until Tuesday.”

“That’s okay,” Tommy said. He rested his head on his hands. “Do you want a soda, Gordon?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever flavor—just choose for me,” Gordon said, his mind back on the calculations. He heard Tommy leave the room, his chair squeaking against the linoleum and the door closing behind him. Gordon glanced over at the numbers and the colors and noticed that when the spikes started a color pattern started to form. The tops of the peaks turned red…or was that more purple? Gordon examined it and decided it was more purple.

Huh. He didn’t understand it, but he did think it was pretty notable. This was around seven a.m., so, whatever they started doing here clearly lead to the incident at 10:32 a.m. Gordon put the papers back and went back to his calculations. When Tommy returned, he had finished the papers. He was pocketing a crushed can and set the remaining two on the table.

“Thirsty enough to drink the first one?” Gordon asked.

Tommy nodded. “Need the energy,” he said. “Helps my eyes.”

“I get that.” Gordon took a sip of his own. Gordon helped Tommy with the color key. They got up to eight a.m. when the papers trailed off. They’d need the numbers still being dug up by the flash-drive.

Gordon leaned back up in his chair, covering his eyes with his hands. “Hey, Tommy. Any chance you’re good at Christmas decoration ideas?”

“I don’t celebrate!” Tommy said with a small smile. “But I always liked tinsel.”

“No, god no,” Gordon shook his head. “That shit gets all over the place. How about…this year Joshua’s really liked bears?”

“Polar bear themed? That’s snow themed, and snow’s apart of Christmas?” Tommy suggested.

“Yeah, yeah! That could be fun,” Gordon said. “And not something so full of red and green. Sometimes I get a headache staring at them bright colors.”

“Drink more soda,” Tommy suggested. “That helps with my headaches.”

“I think it makes mine worse,” Gordon said with a shrug.

They were just sitting around waiting for Harlan to come in with the new numbers when Harlan did come in, but not with numbers. He was clearly flustered and angry. He was missing his lanyard with is ID. “Have either of you left the room recently?”

Gordon didn’t get the chance to answer. Tommy beat him to it. “Sorry, Harlan, no.”

Harlan groaned, but he believed Tommy. He ran a hand through his hair and groaned. He shot a look out towards the hallway.

“Damn it. I’ll be back. I’m going to security to see if they have camera recordings,” Harlan said. “They’ll have my ass,” Harlan muttered and left the room with a heavy door slam. Gordon looked to Tommy immediately who was fiddling with the can still half-full of his soda.

“So?” Gordon questioned.

Tommy didn’t answer. He took a drink of his soda and looked to the side. Gordon sighed and organized their papers. He got them in order and looked over to Tommy occasionally hoping he’d have fessed up.

Tommy didn’t.

“Okay,” Gordon said. “I’ll pretend you didn’t just lie to Harlan.” He crossed his arms across his chest and rested them onto the table peering into Tommy’s face with measured patience.

Tommy shot him a questioning look then a look of understanding. Tommy looked down at the table. “You don’t have to, Gordon. I just…didn’t want him to be overly suspicious of us.”

“Won’t he be when he sees the camera records?” Gordon asked. “Since you lied to him.”

“There won’t be any camera records,” Tommy said.

There was far too much silence after that. Especially with how monotone Tommy had said that. If it wasn’t for how bright and cheery a person Tommy was, Gordon would have thought Tommy was capable of possibly sabotaging those said cameras in this part of the building and the computer in the next room with…soda? Gordon sighed. Did he want to really get involved with this? Should he tell Harlan his suspicions. Tommy was his only friend here, but god, Tommy was clearly caught up in whatever happened. And if he didn’t do anything, he’d also be caught up in it.

“Okay. Just…try not to involve me, please. I want to stay friends with you,” Gordon said, “But I really don’t want to be in any more trouble with Black Mesa.”

Tommy grimaced. “I’m sorry, Gordon. I…I’ll try to keep you out of it.”

Great. There was an it. Gordon sighed, leaning his head into his arms and waiting for either Harlan to come back and confront them about the lie or hopefully Harlan to send him home because there was no work to do. No luck.

Eventually when Harlan did appear, he was not pleased. He told them he wanted a copy of the current papers they’d got done, and Tommy promised him one after he was done with his report. Harlan didn’t budge. A copy now. So that’s how the papers were passed off to him to go down to the copier in the break room and make a copy of all of them.

God. Clearly Tommy wanted whatever information was from that experiment kept from Harlan for whatever reason.

And clearly Tommy knew way too much about the issues with the experiment.

And now Gordon was holding all the presumably remaining data. He still had pens in his pockets. Some of it was written in pencil. If he really wanted to do something, he could edit some of the information.

But why would he do that? Gordon had no idea what this was about. He just wanted to get his job done and go home to Joshua and prepare for Christmas. Gordon sighed, and just copied the pages as is. Not his fight. Not his problem. He had no reason to believe this was something unethical on either side. Not his business to get involved in.

He wasn’t the only person in the break room he realized after a moment. Quietly in the corner was one of the R&D guys writing down things in a notebook. Gordon let the copier do its work, turning to watch the thirty-year-old black man in the corner working on something. He hadn’t even seen all of the R&D, let alone talked to any of them, so he couldn’t put a name to a face.

The man caught him staring and gave him a polite wave. Gordon waved back. “Sorry for staring, just…uh I guess curious.”

“About why we’re the only two in the break room at 4 p.m.?”

“Sure,” Gordon couldn’t actually think reasonably why he’d been staring at a coworker.

“Everyone rushing to get home on a Friday in December,” the man said. “I’ve seen you before. You’re the physics guy that pissed off Hedley?”

“So, that was his name?” Gordon said with a laugh. “I didn’t even know him.”

“Hedley’s always had a temper,” the man said with a laugh. “It’s Gordon, right?”

“Yeah, I’m Gordon Freeman.”

“Darnold Volt,” he introduced. “I’m working on some formulas and needed a change of environment. Too much noise in R&D.” Darnold held up his notebook and Gordon caught some chemistry and equations there and winced. Not any fun.

Gordon gestured to the copier behind him. “I’m copying all the numbers from the fatal Observation dealio,” Gordon said.

“Oh,” Darnold said, and then looked considered the copier. “I could see why’d they want more than one copy. Hopefully a lot of eyes on it after that catastrophe.” Darnold returned to his numbers, but spared Gordon one last glance. “Tell Tommy I said hi.”

“You know Tommy?”

Darnold wasn’t looking at him anymore, but he saw Darnold nod. “He used to like hanging out in the R&D lab before that Observation shift took over his time.”

“Huh,” Gordon nodded, and heard the copier whir. It’d clearly reached the end of the stack of papers. He turned to it and pulled out the copies and the originals and kept them in two different oriented stacks so not to mix them up. “Well, see you maybe another time, Darnold. Nice meeting you.”

“Mhm,” Darnold was too wrapped up to talk any more. Gordon didn’t mind. Black Mesa had been always a relatively antisocial place. He thinks in the two years he’d been here so far that Tommy had been the only real proper friendly person. Gordon returned Harlan’s office and found him on call with someone.

He gestured for Gordon to lay down the papers on his desk but held up a finger when Gordon went to leave. Harlan finished up his phone call and motioned Gordon back over. Reluctantly, Gordon went back over to Harlan’s desk.

“Neither of you left the room, did you?” Harlan asked.

“No, sir,” Gordon said.

“And do you remember the time the lights went out?”

“No, sir,” Gordon said.

“I see,” Harlan looked at the numbers, his fingers running down the averages and the color-coding. “Well, go run the other copy to Tommy, and then you’re free to leave.”

“Thank-you, sir,” Gordon said.

“Just remember,” Harlan said. “What I told you about the other guy that stuck his nose where it didn’t belong.”

Gordon nodded, but didn’t say anything more to Gordon, closing the door to Harlan’s office behind him with a sigh. Why. Why. Why him? He didn’t want to be involved with this. Gordon went over to the Bio lab, nearly running into Travis who was clearly leaving. He shot Gordon a smarmy look and strode past him. Gordon just rolled his eyes and entered the Bio lab.

Tommy was the only one left. He was sitting at one of the computers in the corner. His fingers were flying across the keyboard, but he stopped when Gordon came in with a smile. He accepted the stack of papers and thanked Gordon.

And that was it. Tommy went back to the computer.

Gordon tried not to overanalyze whether this was a good or bad thing. Instead, he just turned and left. He was going to grab his jacket from his dorm and head out. He didn’t need to grab it really, but he needed to give it a wash and it might actually get a little chilly Monday, so why not.

And he ran right back into the surly guard, Benrey.

Really. After this craptastic day? Gordon thought about fleeing, but it was too late, Benrey was approaching.

“Yo.”

“Hey, man. Don’t mind me, just going to get my jacket,” Gordon muttered and stepped past the guard. The guard followed him.

“You…uh…look…” the guard didn’t finish that sentence.

“Pissed? Exhausted? Fed-up?” Gordon questioned, fiddling with his key-card to open his door.

“Yeah,” Benrey said. “All of those.”

“Just getting shit from my supervisor, Harlan,” Gordon said, and his door unlocked. His jacket was just inside on the chair and so he grabbed it and let the door auto lock as he left. “Why do you care?”

“I uh…feel lame about…uh…being…uh…rude to you?” Benrey seemed to phrase it like a question.

Gordon snorted. He was pretty bad at communicating, like Tommy had said. Gordon leaned on his door and just shook his head. “Look, let’s put it behind us. I forgive you and all.” Benrey just nodded, his eyes shooting off to the side.

“Cool,” he muttered.

“Cool,” Gordon affirmed. “Well, see you around I guess.”

“Wait,” Benrey said, as Gordon made to leave.

“What now?” if Gordon snapped that a little harshly who could blame him.

Benrey shrugged. “You uh…I hope your day gets better.”

Gordon paused, but then smiled. He laughed a little internally and shot Benrey an earnest look of confusion mixed with a small bit of gratitude. “Thanks. Have a good one too, man,” and with that Gordon was leaving.

Although as he made it to the parking garage and got in his car, all he could think was, “that dude was pretty weird.” And in a way, that should be the end of it, but…Gordon was a bit intrigued. A weird guy, yeah, but maybe not half bad. He’d take Tommy up on that game night offer and maybe Benrey would be a chill dude.

…


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because today's terrible and the election outcome looks grim, have a distraction.

Monday brought a whole host of problems. Gordon was called into a meeting with Harlan nearly the moment he parked his car.

“Walk with me,” Harlan said, already at the damn parking garage exit waiting for him.

“Okay—is there an issue or something that couldn’t wait?” Gordon questioned. Harlan looked worse than usual, his bruises under his eyes were nearly purple and black and his eyes were bloodshot.

“Yes. You’re coming with me to Security. I need your exact testimony of what happened before, during and after the lights went out. No details spared,” Harlan said tersely, as they rode the elevator up. Gordon eyed him stupefied.

“Really? Is it that important, man? I didn’t see sh—much,” Gordon said, rubbing the back of his neck. Harlan just shot him a dark glower.

“I could care less if you were asleep during the entire incident. The superiors are coming down on me, and if I can give them anything, I will,” Harlan snapped and with a sigh he looked up at the vent on top of the elevator.

Gordon wasn’t really fond of Harlan, but with how genuinely distressed the man looked and sounded he felt obligatory sympathy. “I’m sorry for that, just little nervous. You okay?”

Harlan didn’t look at him. “Freeman, shut the fuck up, please for the love of god. I have a migraine,” Harlan snapped.

Ouch. Touchy. He hadn’t even said that much.

Gordon glanced at the doors of the elevator, watching the numbers ticking up and sighed. They made it to the right floor and Gordon followed a few feet behind his irritated superior, glancing around at his surroundings.

There were guards checking in for their shift, and guards grabbing things from lockers to leave for the day in a nearby locker room. A few doors down from that was the primary Security office with a number of cameras, and a few people discussing something in hushed voices. When they saw Harlan approaching they quieted and a man in his mid-40’s and balding stood from where he leaned against the filing cabinets. He outstretched a hand to shake with Harlan, then Gordon in turn.

“Morning men, sorry to pull you away from your work, but we’re just trying to prevent any more incidents,” the man spoke with a crisp professional P.R. polished voice.

“Not a problem at all,” Harlan said. “This is the man I had running data analysis, Freeman,” Harlan said, gesturing to Freeman.

“Ah, Freeman—you wouldn’t happen to be the same Freeman that—”

“Yes sir, that’d be me,” Gordon said, feeling the embarrassment creep up on his face. The man just laughed.

“Relax, no one here’s going to grill you for that a second time. No, we just need to know if you saw anything. Mrs. Quinn here and I will be asking you a few questions; shouldn’t take much time at all. Harlan, if you could wait until after; I have a certain matter to resume discussing with you,” he said.

Harlan nodded, curtly and stepped back out into the hallway as Gordon was led to a small conference room adjacent to the security office. “Sorry, also for the lack of introduction. I’m Jason Reid, head of security at Black Mesa, and that’s Barbara Quinn, former head of Observation, now overseeing night security,” Reid explained while unlocking the conference room and motioning for Freeman to enter.

“Nice to meet you, sorry if I’m not entirely awake yet,” Gordon said, trying to cover up his nerves.

“No, no, it’s fine. This is mostly informal. Nothing said here will affect your job in anyway. I was just hoping you could clear up some confusion on our end since you were near the incident,” Reid said, opting not sit at a chair like Gordon, but on the side of the table. Quinn decided not to sit at all, standing near the door, a small notepad in hand.

It felt like an interrogation.

They asked him a number of questions. Starting small. What time did he clock in that day? When did he clock out? When did the first fluctuations occur? All of those Gordon answered as truthfully as his memory could recall. It was when they got to the lights going out he stumbled.

Why was he so hesitant to just say 10:32 a.m.? Why was he covering it up? God, he had no good reason, but he’d covered it up until now, and it felt more suspicious to say something truthful after lying to Harlan all this time. It wouldn’t earn him any brownie points with Harlan that was sure.

“I…I have trouble recalling,” Gordon said. “I think around…10 a.m.?”

“Good, good,” Reid said to himself. “That narrows things down for us. Did you see anyone by any chance during the lights out?”

“Some guards heading to the Observation room,” Gordon said.

“How many?”

“Two.”

Reid froze. His eyes went to Quinn and she nodded as if confirming something. He didn’t relax. “Are you sure?” Gordon now was regretting that. Why was that information so important? Why?

“Yes.”

“Did anyone else go down that hallway?”

“No…? The guards told me to stay inside the room and I did.”

“Did you at any point exit the room again?”

“No,” Gordon said. It was somewhat a lie. He had seen the other guard when he peeked out again. Reid relaxed some.

“Thank-you, Freeman. You’ve been a great help; you’re free to go back to your department,” Reid said, standing up. He took the notepad from Quinn and strode quickly off into another room. Quinn just held the door for him, wordlessly scrutinizing him as he left.

Weird. Weird. Very weird. Gordon tried not to think to hard on it, passing Harlan idling in the hallway before heading to his department. He didn’t mean to overhear the conversation happening in the guard locker room, but he did.

“Damn, Calhoun still out sick?”

“Yeah. Suck’s ass. He promised to trade shifts with me before Christmas.”

“With Calhoun out sick and Mulberry…well, you know.”

“God, they need to stop cutting our budget if they’re going to throw us at everything in Observation that so as much squeaks,” one of the older guards said. He caught Gordon staring and Gordon walked quicker to the elevator.

“Who was it?” another guard asked.

“Dunno, some scientist or something.”

Gordon thought he’d be freed from his eavesdropping crime by the elevator. He was wrong. That senior guard and two others were heading out to patrols and caught the elevator, eying Gordon. Gordon tried to not look at them.

“You’re Freeman—didn’t you used to get lunch with Calhoun when you were in physics?” one of the younger guards Gordon had seen a few times around Calhoun question.

“Yeah, but we weren’t friends,” Gordon said. “Not enough anyway.”

“You have his number? He hasn’t checked in since he called out sick,” the same guard asked.

“Lay off,” the senior guard said. “Calhoun probably was traumatized by what he saw in Observation.”

The guards shared a look and the younger guard nodded. Gordon tried not to be interested, but he was. “What was in Observation?”

The guards exchanged looks and the oldest grimly laughed. “Ever seen a body stripped of flesh and impaled on an overturned table? They had a few of us help the cleaners get the bodies out. Nice money they gave me for it. Mulberry was a stick in the mud, but damn he didn’t deserve that. The scientists least looked like they went out quickly. Just blood and guts and bits of bone all _over_ the floor.”

“Oh, time for you to lay off,” the younger guard said, seeing Gordon’s queasy face. “The scientists don’t have a stomach for blood.”

“They’re paid too much more for that,” the senior guard said with a huff.

Gordon saw it was his floor and quickly got out, awkwardly shoving past the guards. “Well, that was nice. I’m going now.”

“Run along scientist, wouldn’t want some blue collars ruining your day,” the man said with a chuckle as Gordon made it to the hallway and dusted himself off. He shot a look over his shoulder at the guards, but the elevator was already closed.

Gordon decided to put two and two together as he jotted down the new readings on the tablet. Apparently now focused on a decidedly less interesting subject that barely did anything.

“Two guards. That news was concerning. One died. One’s out sick,” Gordon puzzled. “And security wants to know when that guard was seen. Did Calhoun have something to do with the incident that killed those people? But no human could ever do…that to someone,” Gordon muttered to himself. He tapped the pen on his lips and thought. “Maybe? Explosives?”

Regardless, he couldn’t think of what had happened. As he was packing up for lunch, it hit him. Mulberry was apparently the dead one, and Gordon knows he didn’t see Calhoun, but Benrey. _Oh_. Maybe that’s why they were so concerned with his testimony.

They had sent three guards there, and only one returned.

Gordon shook his head. He had thought Calhoun was a decent guy; he hoped the man didn’t turn out to be a maniac.

Gordon was stopped by Harlan before he could head to lunch, which was twice too many times to see him in a day. Harlan looked angry. Furious. “Freeman, a word.” Really? Please don’t tell him it was over the whole not telling him the time of day and the guard thing?

Harlan didn’t even take Gordon to his office. He chewed him a new one in the middle of that hallway. “Are you trying to make my life difficult? To get my ass on the line?”

“I didn’t remember at the time, okay?” Gordon argued, crossing his arms. “I’m sorry.”

“None of these problems occurred until I put you in that room,” Harlan said, “And then suddenly the tablet’s fried, the numbers are missing and the only available back-up gets fried—I have half a mind to file a report and put all that evidence towards it being _your_ doing.”

Gordon feels anger rise up. “With all due respect, I understand your situation, but I haven’t done anything. I don’t know what’s even going on with it all.”

“You lied. You knew the time. You could have at least told me something! Do you know how much of an idiot I look like to them?”

“I’m sorry, okay,” Gordon said raising his hands. “I was stressed out the day and it slipped my mind.”

“I can’t trusr you. I can’t trust anyone at this damned facility. Everyone here’s out for blood,” Harlan spat, and Gordon thought maybe that was a little too dramatic. Harlan seemed to be having a breakdown and it was all being unleashed on him. “I’m filing that damn report, and any other hellfire they have will be for you. I’m done with this.”

Harlan turned on heel and Gordon had a burning taste on his tongue and he was tempted to argue it, to say something, but what could he say? He had no idea what the fuck was going on? Did he throw Tommy under the bus? God, that would be cruel and with that incident he already had…Gordon clenched his fists, took a deep breath and groaned.

He heard a soft chuckle.

Gordon glanced down the hallway, and saw a foot peaking out from a corner. Great, someone had heard that entire conversation. It was in the opposite direction Harlan had gone. Gordon walked over there, and loitering next to the coffee and cappuccino machine was the guard, Benrey.

“What’s so funny?” Gordon questioned.

Benrey glanced at him, and then gestured to the hallway Gordon came from. “Heard it all. You being a bad boy, Gordon?”

“No, but apparently I’m about to be reported as one,” Gordon said. “Look, please do not give me any more shit, I just want to go get lunch.”

“You came over here,” Benrey pointed out.

Gordon had. He sighed. “I did, fair enough.”

Benrey was smiling while he talked to Gordon. It was a small satisfied smile like he was happy about something Gordon wasn’t privy too. “And? My suffering’s hilarious.”

“Nah. Them thinking you really sabotaged all that is,” Benrey said. “You are pretty sus though. Being all grumpy and sullen and all frowny,” Benrey said.

“Thanks,” Gordon muttered sarcastically. He sighed and leaned on the wall opposite of the guard. It occurred to him that since Benrey was Tommy’s friend, if it was really Tommy doing all that he could know it was Tommy. Gordon supposed asking the guard to vouch for seeing him inside the room would be hopeless. He was also guessing the guard lied in his interview with security about whatever happened since he seemed pretty protective over Tommy.

“You wanna go play a game?”

“Aren’t you working?” Gordon questioned.

“No.”

“Why are you in uniform then?” Gordon asked.

Benrey shrugged. “Comfy.”

Gordon snorted. He really doubted that, but he let it go and sighed. Benrey seemed like the kind of guard to play hooky anyway.

Gordon technically had analysis to do, but today he usually did it with Tommy and the numbers were so unremarkable. Maybe Tommy could do him a solid and lie for him, since after all Gordon was lying for him on whatever business that was. Looks like Gordon was being fired from what originally was a dream job anyway since everyone thought he was up to no good.

“Fuck it, yeah. I’ll grab something from the vending machine. Today’s been bad enough; I could use an extended down-time,” Gordon decided. Benrey grinned, but he kept his teeth strangely hidden behind his hand as he did so. After a moment he just shrugged and got off the wall, gesturing for Gordon to follow.

“Come on, Freeman. Gonna beat you in uh…Smash. We have Smash.”

“Uh-huh. You look like the loser that mains Pikachu.”

…

Gordon couldn’t say he’d had fun with other adults in a long time. Sure, he had fun with his son, and maybe by himself, and maybe in a few brief polite talks with strangers—but it brought him back to his college days sitting side by side with someone, playing video games, chewing on semi-stale chips from a vending machine and his sweaty fingers clinging to a controller that was a few years worn. Benrey was a loud player, and he was mouthy—Gordon—having only work and a son taking up his time—hadn’t been exposed to someone’s sailor mouth for a while, and he was liking it.

Benrey cursed when he won, when he lost, when he hit any sort of obstacle or when he overcame that obstacle. His curse’s were also mostly nonsensical rambling that Gordon found himself in tears from laughing so hard at. “You like that won’t you clumsy crab baby eating a shit donut, huh?” Benrey said as he threw a shell at him.

Gordon was too busy laughing to do much, just shoving Benrey in a foul attempt to beat him. “Fuck off, man.”

“Little fighty boy, gonna throw hands, gonna throw feet, Feetman. Gonna,” Benrey tapped the buttons rapidly as he neared the finish. “Gonna throw brains.”

“What are you even saying?” Gordon questioned, as he tried to pass Benrey, but Benrey’s reflexes were a step above his, and his timing on speed-boosting was better than Gordon’s. “Gah, not again.”

“Not gamer enough. Not gay enough. Gotta be gaymer for this. Don’t have skill,” Benrey rattled off, and then he passed the finish, setting the controller down and raising both hands. “Fucking bitch shit damn get owned, son!”

“Jesus, did you swallow a message forum for Doom speedruns or is your vocabulary always this bad?” Gordon questioned. “You won, man. Congrats. Again.”

Benrey flashed him a grin. “Loser boy. Gonna find you a game you can win.” Benrey leaned back on the couch, head slapping the back—which still in a helmet surely wasn’t that comfy. His eyes rolled to Gordon, staring at him. Gordon just shook his head.

It was clear Tommy and Benrey shared a room, and based on the inordinate amount of blankets and pillows piled on the armchair that someone slept on a couch. Based on how neat the place was and the organization system going on—he’d have to say it was Tommy’s room and Benrey was crashing. Gordon didn’t think too hard about it, but he noticed Benrey was much more relaxed here, with the guard-posture dropped entirely and his legs everywhere but the floor.

“Uh-huh. I’m rusty. I haven’t played properly in a while,” Gordon defended, stretching out his wrists and fingers. “You look like you play all day.”

“Yuh,” Benrey said. He reached into the bag of chips, holding the chip between his fingers before letting it fall back into the bag, his eyes going to Gordon “Gotta raise the stakes. So, you uh…scared of losing, cuz’ you aren’t right now.”

“Oh?” Gordon questioned. He did have his wallet on him, but that’d be an easy loss. Benrey was very good at games.

Benrey sat up, pulling out a new game and held it up. “Mario Party 4.”

“Oh boy. So, we’re basing this on luck too and NPCs?” Gordon questioned. Benrey nodded, He loaded the game into the GameCube. He had a small smile, a telling smile. Gordon had caught on Benrey was a mischevious bastard of a person.

“What’s the stakes?” Gordon questioned.

“Dunno. Hm. If you lose,” Benrey drawled out, “you gotta uh…uh…kiss me.” Benrey said innocently, and Gordon eyed him first on suspicion of mal intent, then on suspicion of seriousness, then curiosity. Gordon ran his finger over the controller’s buttons, a well built and old suspicion taking over him at first.

“What makes you think I’d be into that…?” Gordon questioned.

Benrey shrugged. “That’s why if it’s you lose.”

“What if I don’t want to kiss you?” Gordon questioned.

“Don’t lose then,” Benrey taunted.

“What if I lose and don’t want to kiss you?” Gordon pressed.

“Don’t have to. Just…throwing out stakes. Can uh…bet…human money?” Benrey questioned, tapping his finger on the side of the controller. He was staring at the screen, eyes shadowed by the helmet and Gordon struggled to figure out the intent. He’d had only a couple of memorable bad homophobic run-ins. Usually among those he trusted rather than complete strangers.

Gordon bit the bullet, and decided fuck it. If Benrey’s really an asshole no trust lost, if he’s not and he’s trying to flirt, then fuck it, Gordon was about to be fired anyway it seemed like. Gordon just laughed, throwing his nervousness and potential fear into over-exaggerated confidence. “I’m not going to lose, but if I do, I’m not giving you any money. Fine, a kiss is no biggie.”

“Really?” Benrey questioned.

“Yeah, no sweat. What if you lose? How about…” Gordon took a moment to think something up, using the time to process the way Benrey had ducked his head entirely, hiding his face the moment Gordon confirmed it. Either he’s laughing or…the dude’s actually been trying to flirt.

Gordon tried to line up the signs. The long silent machine in his brain used for interpreting “into me” or “joking” booted up and he tried to feed the information in. Too hard to tell. Benrey’s constant comments were cryptic at best. His gestures baseless and seemingly random. It’d be a risky movie to flirt back.

“If you lose, you can buy me a decent snack—these one’s are kind of stale, and I know the guard locker room has a better vending machine,” Gordon offered, and Benrey sat back up, wiping his mouth off on his sleeve. He caught a slight glimpse of some sort of color on Benrey’s hand as he wiped it into his pants. Drugs? Weird slime food? Paint? It was weirdly bright, but whatever it is, it didn’t linger on Benrey’s pants.

“Deal,” Benrey said. “Let’s go. Gonna beat you. Gonna kick your ass. Your ass is grass,” Benrey started his gamer rambling again, fingers tapping rhythmically against the buttons and Gordon shook his head, focusing on choosing a character. But Gordon’s eyes were distracted. He definitely just saw color. Color floating in the left side of his vision.

Gordon glanced over but Benrey just coughed.

Huh. Migraine aura then. Damn, all the stress really must be chewing in on his brain. Gordon focused on the game. All lock of the dice, AI and NPC’s—he could win this.

Gordon was pretty sure he won this. All it came down to was the final awarding of the bonus stars. “You didn’t get more coins than me,” Gordon decided.

Benrey shook his head. “Uh-huh.”

“No, you didn’t you had—” Gordon glanced at the screen. “How the fuck--?”

“Oh no, looks like you lost,” Benrey said. Gordon swore he had more coins. Gordon clutched his controller and turned back to the screen, gesturing to it.

“I still have more stars.”

“Not for long.” Benrey set his controller down and rested his head on his hand, watching Gordon and the screen with a self-satisfied smirk.

“I’m going to pummel you if they just— _why_. No—no,” Gordon screamed at the TV as the lovely AI handed Benrey another damn star. “No! I beat you fair and square! This is hacks! Bullshit!” Gordon stared at the screen. They were now tied no stars, but that meant—it came down to coins.

Benrey didn’t say a word, just wiggled his eyebrows. Gordon rolled his eyes, dropped the controller on the couch and crossed his arms. Benrey had won. Really. After all the hard work Gordon put into those mini-games.

“Come smooch me,” Benrey said, making little grabby hands.

“Bullshit,” Gordon muttered. “I did way better than you.”

“Smooch time,” Benrey said, turning to Gordon fully. “Gimme a smackerooni on the lips.”

Gordon glanced up at him. Narrowed eyes stared down into his, Benrey’s lips already puckered, and he was hovering hesitantly over Gordon.

“You only won, because the AI is BS,” Gordon said.

“Smooch me, Gordon, smooch me,” Benrey said. Benrey had leaned too far over and fell miraculously off the couch. Just in time for the door to the dorm to open, a frazzled Tommy stumbling in with a word on the tip of his tongue that died at the sight of Benrey face first on the ground, Gordon sitting there puzzled, and the music from the video-game still playing on the TV.

“Oh. Here you are,” Tommy said, puzzled. “Benrey?”

“Just chilling. On floor,” Benrey said from the floor.

“I was a little worried, Gordon, when I didn’t see you, but you’re okay and so is Benrey,” Tommy said. His hunched shoulders slackened and he closed the door behind him. “Oh, this is not as bad as what I thought. Okay,” Tommy said that last part more to himself, leaning on the door before straightening, as if a weight had just slid off him he was peppy again.

“Did you beat Gordon at games, Benrey?”

“Yup,” Benrey said, finally getting up from the floor slowly, dragging himself up. He blinked at Tommy and then looked to Gordon. “Gordon owes me a kiss.” Gordon immediately felt his face heat up and his ears burning and he sat up. Tommy just laughed.

“Benrey likes you, Gordon!” Tommy said.

“Uh-uh,” Benrey said. He stuck out his tongue and found his way back onto the couch, his legs stretching out and trapping Gordon who had been about to get up. “Was making sure we’re all good friends. Close. Homies.”

Tommy sat on the edge of the couch beside Benrey on the arm-rest, turning his attention to Gordon who was trying to subtly push Benrey’s legs off. It was not working. “You didn’t show up for analysis?” Tommy questioned.

Gordon sighed and stopped pushing at Benrey’s legs and leaned back into the couch, not missing the way Benrey just closed his eyes and smiled, like he had planned to trap him here to have to explain to Tommy that he bailed on him for his weird roommate to play video games. “Yeah, had a rough day.”

“His supervisor chewed his ass in the hallway,” Benrey said, putting a hand over his mouth as a rather musical yawn came out. “Gordon’s burnt bread.”

Tommy looked concerned. “I’m sorry, Gordon, I didn’t want you to get caught up in it.” He glanced to Benrey who just nodded. “They think you did it?”

Gordon was wondering how Tommy got that much from Benrey’s rather nonsensical words. “Yeah, since it all started when I transferred they think it’s me. Bad timing, I guess,” Gordon said. Benrey nudged him with his foot and Gordon glanced to Benrey to see him staring, eyes narrowed. Benrey wiggled his eyebrows.

“Gordon’s a bad boy,” Benrey said.

Gordon rolled his eyes. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I can help get your supervisor to leave you alone,” Tommy assured. “My dad is very influential!”

“Your dad’s shit,” Benrey muttered.

“He’s not!” Tommy said, slapping Benrey gently on the arm. Benrey just looked to Gordon. “Your supervisor gonna get you fired? Gonna get Gordon homeless?”

“Seems like he has it out for me, yeah,” Gordon admitted. “I think he’s having some issues, man. Like not just work issues, like issues in general. Apparently, his last employee like got gruesomely injured and then I heard that happened again—that’d put a lot of stress on someone if you were responsible for that fuck up,” Gordon tried to empathize. Benrey just yawned, covering his mouth again. Tommy smiled sympathetically.

“That’s very nice of you, Gordon, and I think you’re right! Nobody’s mean on purpose!”

Benrey looked at Tommy, and Tommy amended. “He’s probably not mean on purpose!” Gordon caught that exchange. Geesh, looks like Benrey hadn’t dealt with the best employees at Black Mesa. Neither had Gordon.

They had to get tested for radioactivity once a week before they could leave for the weekend, this wasn’t exactly a great workplace. Cool science, not so much good ethics or ethical science for that matter. Maybe he should consider quitting.

“If I’m fired, it was nice knowing you,” Gordon said, and Tommy grimaced. Gordon made to stand and Benrey pushed back with his legs.

“Not gonna fire you,” Benrey said.

“My dad can—” Tommy tried to say, but Benrey cut him off.

“Won’t get a chance,” Benrey said.

“ _And_ this sounds like the thing I don’t want to be involved in,” Gordon said, pushing against Benrey’s legs again. “Alright, let me up if you’re going to conspire.”

“Gordon, I think Benrey’s trying to look out for you. He’s very bad at communicating. He isn’t implying any harm will come to your supervisor,” Tommy assured.

Gordon wasn’t thinking in those terms exactly, but now he was. “That sounds exactly like what he was doing.”

“Nuh-uh,” Benrey hummed. “Got bugs in your ears. Hearing things. Can’t leave until you kiss me, anyway.”

“I can’t kiss you with your legs trapping me,” Gordon muttered. Tommy suddenly had a thought that occurred to him.

“Want to see pictures of Sunkist?”

Gordon did want to see pictures of Sunkist. His escape plans were foiled the instant Tommy brought out literal polaroids of Sunkist in a scrapbook. She was a very perfect dog, with a happy wagging tail in all the pictures, and an amazingly photogenic doggy smile. Benrey had shifted his legs off of Gordon and was sitting between Tommy and Gordon, the scrapbook in his lap as Tommy explained where each photo was taken and what the moment was.

“This was when I taught Sunkist how to bark!”

“Aw, I always wanted to teach a dog to speak,” Gordon said. “I only ever managed ‘sit down’ with the dog my parents got when I was like 10.”

“Not speak, bark,” Tommy corrected. “Sunkist is the perfect dog, but her bark was missing!”

“Oh, like a throat issue,” Gordon questioned.

Benrey hummed in thought, his hand over his mouth. “More like his dumb dog didn’t know how to be a dog.”

Tommy shot a scolding look to Benrey. “Sunkist is the perfect dog! Benrey and Sunkist don’t get along.”

“Why not? Not a fan of dogs?” Gordon questioned, eying Benrey. Benrey shrugged, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand again.

“Dogs don’t like me. Too spooky for them,” Benrey said.

Gordon thought back to Sunkist’s origin as a science experiment. “Was Sunkist always a dog?”

Benrey said ‘no’ at the same time Tommy said ‘yes’ brightly. Tommy elbowed Benrey in the stomach and smiled. “Sunkist had trouble fitting in as a dog! But she was always a dog!”

“Okay,” Gordon said, as he caught Benrey rubbing where Tommy elbowed him. “That makes sense. Sure. Benrey leaned against Gordon and Gordon glanced over at him and saw the man had angled his head up at Gordon.

“Smooch me,” Benrey said.

Gordon ignored that. He glanced at the clock in the corner of the room and sighed. It was getting late. He did need to go. “Work tomorrow’s going to be terrible. I should at least try to sleep.”

“Nooooo stay,” Benrey said. “Don’t work. Just play games.”

“That works for you, but not me,” Gordon said. He pulled a clinging hand off his arm and Tommy grabbed his scrapbook of photos of Sunkist and set it on the table.

“Have a good night, Gordon! See you tomorrow!”

“Night, guys,” Gordon said and headed for the door, rubbing his head to clear up the migraine aura as he swore he saw colored lights. As he entered the hallway, his fatigue really hit him and he yawned. He scratched his head and headed to his room only to hear a foostep behind him. Gordon glanced behind him.

“You are way too quiet,” Gordon muttered. “I didn’t hear the door open.”

“Gamer skills,” Benrey said. “Gonna uh…get my good night kiss.”

Gordon snorted, he glanced around the common area and then back to Benrey, raising an eyebrow. Benrey seemed genuine and it wasn’t like a kiss was a commitment to a relationship. Just a small harmless action between two grown men. It was hardly anything. He knew people who could sleep with strangers.

He’d never been one of those people, but still. Gordon had warmed up marginally to Benrey. “You finally called it a kiss, huh?”

“Whuh?” Benrey questioned.

“Maybe I wasn’t going to give you the kiss, because you kept saying smooch,” Gordon said. He shrugged, and Benrey looked surprised, but recovered quickly, laughing behind his hand. Gordon didn’t make a move to leave, just standing there in the middle of the common area between the two sections of dorm, waiting.

“Got out-played. You have madder gamer skills,” Benrey admitted. He inched closer to Gordon, putting a hand on Gordon’s shoulder. “But you still lost.”

Gordon snorted, and staring down at Benrey, and his eyes turned up, black hair jutting out from under his helmet, light brownish-yellow eyes, and shadowed eyes—he wasn’t like anyone Gordon had ever seen. Yet, there was something familiar to him. Gordon leaned down and kissed Benrey on the lips and pulled away, slowly at first, but quickly once Benrey opened his eyes.

“It was nice playing with you, let’s do it again—if I’m not, you know, fired,” Gordon said, backing up. It felt at once too intimate and he felt his heart in his throat. God no, Freeman, this is why he hadn’t started dating again. He caught feelings too damn fast. He barely knew anything about this guy.

Benrey covered his mouth, but he was smiling. His smile still had a level of mischief to it, even if his cheeks were tinged red. “Yeah. Not many…uh,” Benrey rubbed the back of his neck, moving his hand as he flashed a small hesitant smile. “Not many gamers here. Gotta stick together.”

“Night,” Gordon said.

“Night,” Benrey said.

Gordon walked back to his room, but before he made it to his wing, he glanced back. Benrey was still standing there, his hand over his mouth again, his eyes watching Gordon. When he caught Gordon staring he went back into the other wing, presumably back to Tommy’s room.

Gordon snorted. Maybe he wasn’t the only one catching feelings which made this all the worse. God. Trust him to form a strange friendship with a weird security guard. Maybe the transfer wasn’t all bad. Who knows? If he was fired, he could just get their numbers. Black Mesa kept their employees religiously busy, but they’d find a way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blows bubbles at you so you're under mind control. haha. admittedly tiny bit of filler chapter as I work Dr. Coomer into story. dr. coomer would be going ham in all his free time, but Black Mesa knows that he'd punch too many nazis so they have to be like 'no.'
> 
> also rip bubby trying to find the imposter. no man its not orange, hes doing his tasks.

When Gordon made it to work the next morning, Harlan was missing from his office. It wouldn’t be completely unusual, maybe Harlan was elsewhere, but after the suspicious intonation of Tommy and Benrey he had a feeling something had happened.

But what?

Murder?

Gordon really hoped he hadn’t just kissed a murderer.

That would be bad.

He made his way to the computer room, but found it locked. Very odd. Harlan usually unlocked it before he got here. Harlan wasn’t here. This was all pointing to some very bad things. Gordon was about to start having an internal panic, when he spotted the security head from before. The man was coming towards Harlan’s office as well but stopped when he saw Gordon.

“Just in time,” the security head—his name had slipped Gordon’s mind. “I was hoping I’d get here before you did, but you know—thought the coffee would have kicked in by now.” He unlocked Harlan’s office and grabbed the lanyard inside. “Forgot to get this last night.” He unlocked the computer room next, Gordon staring at him dumbly. “Oh. Yeah. Denisse—head of this section—Bio, R&D and Observation or BRO—sent you an email. Should have your new responsibilities.”

“What happened to Harlan?” Gordon questioned. He was handed the lanyard with three keys on it.

“Terminated—his employment,” the security head, Gordon glanced at his name, oh—Jason Reid. “His position was about to be consolidated regardless, so I’ve heard. I’m sure Denisse will fill you in,” Reid said, and he gave a small wave. “I’ll be off, just needed to get this unlocked for you. I think Denisse mentioned something about needing someone at least to check the files for past records of Observation.”

Gordon nodded, not sure what to say. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. A mute sort of dryness robbing him of his voice. Why did he feel like it wasn’t a coincidence? Wanting to be out of the hallway, he went into the computer room and eyed the computer. He hit escape to exit the program and logged onto Black Mesa’s servers to check his email.

_From: Denisse Hartford_

_To: J.Reid@blackmesa.co_

_CC: Freeman, Gordon_

_Subject: New arrangements post Harlan’s resignation_

_This is a follow-up to the follow-up email to last night’s late meeting we had following the board’s statements. See previous email, Reid, for a transcript of last night’s OOB meeting._

_Harlan has handed in his on-the-spot resignation following the meeting’s outcome, and his position is being consolidated into Bio’s responsibilities. Observation for the short time, will not have an official head until Specimen#536436 has been dealt with. It shouldn’t be trouble, Dr. H. Coomer has returned from his vacation, and is usually diligent with recording files._

_I’ll have Gordon Freeman move the collection of files in Harlan’s office to Bio’s library of files. Their scanner should be operational and if he scans in all files regarding Specimen#536436 and related subclass specimens in the XNR-BM type that should assist in your search. As useful as Dr. Coolatta’s reports usually are, I’ll be reassigning the analysis to Dr. Coomer._

_See my follow-up email, Reid on the subject of C._

_-D. Hartford_

…

_From: Denisse Hartford_

_To: Gordon Freeman_

_Subject: New Responsibilities_

_Disregard most of the previous email. It was erroneous to CC you. However, the responsibilities mentioned are not._

_Harlan has been slacking in the last few months in scanning important files to Black Mesa’s servers. It is dire you upload files labeled in the bottom right corner on the first page with XNR-BM. The folder they’ll be deposited in is labeled Incident#406f and its file permissions have been extended for you to deposit relevant files._

_If there are any files on these 3 subjects not under XNR-BM, please upload them as well, but put them in a separate folder labeled. Incident#406f1_

_-Specimen#536436_

_-Specimen#063345_

_-Specimen#00385_

_Please label files with XNR-BM S(Subject number) and then the date on file for all._

_Thank-you._

_-D. Hartford_

_…_

How did they accidentally CC him? Then again, this was not the last or first-time he’d been CC’d in some random email by a department head. They all remember the infamous CC-all reply of a blackmail photo of Dr. Kleiner in his Halloween costume in his early 20s. It was very revealing of the scientist’s younger days.

He jotted down the three specimen numbers on a spare piece of paper and pocketed it. He could look up the instructions again for scanning them.

Gordon sighed, and went back to the first email, wandering who Dr. Coomer was—what an unfortunate name. It was almost as bad as some bloke he’d run across with the last name Boner.

He wandered what meeting they had last night and if… _your paranoia, Gordon_ —if his suspicions rooted in Tommy and Benrey’s weird inflection was correct. Oh god, what if Tommy indirectly got Harlan to resign. Oh god—what if he was actually murdered. Too weird. That would be like highly illegal. There would be more news on that, right…? If someone at Black Mesa murdered someone it wouldn’t be like swept under the rug?

People did die in lab accidents a little too often. Some guy even died in one twice. The first one he was reported in to have died he actually survived. Poor guy was unlucky two weeks later. It wasn’t at all common the part of the building he was in before—other than that one guy—but he’d heard a few stories about this side of the building before he’d been thrown over here.

Gordon exited the email server and drummed his fingers on the desk. It wasn’t like Black Mesa ever called the police—they had internal security for that and worked with the government, police weren’t really a part of their operations.

Gordon didn’t like Harlan, but…Gordon winced. He had work to do. He closed the computer room behind him and on second thought—locked it. He pocketed the lanyard and went to Harlan’s office and eyed the five filing cabinets.

The first one luckily was full of office supplies, extra staplers, a secret candy stash, and a small bottle of vodka and a couple spare packs of cigarettes and a lighter under that. On second inspection, the candy was two years old. Gross. The receipt for the vodka still nestled was it was only two weeks old. Looks like Harlan was coping with the job well.

Gordon left it alone and moved on to the other cabinets. Out of sheer curiosity he abandoned his look to look at Harlan’s desk. Oddly, his computer and monitor were gone. A few spare cables had been left as well as the mouse. Like someone had been in a hurry.

God, he should really just ignore this. He wasn’t a detective or anything, but he couldn’t help his curiosity.

Right above Harlan’s desk was one of Black Mesa’s infamously large vents. He eyed it, almost as if he felt eyes on him from it but saw nothing. Camera? Gordon shook off his paranoia and opened the top drawer in one of Harlan’s desk and saw papers. He almost ignored it, but he saw it.

His name.

Gordon glanced towards the closed door and the vent above it and pulled out the papers. The report. Harlan hadn’t been kidding. He really had been planning on reporting Gordon. It was all properly filed and had a list of incidents. Gordon scanned through it and winced.

Harlan had caught on that Tommy had lied about staying in the room. It was still all just hearsay except one part. “Security cam footage, date of #Incident406.” It looked like a CD-R in a small envelope had been stapled there, but all that remains was the small square envelope. The detailed description of the footage said Gordon had lied about how many times he’d peaked his head outside the room and…

But someone had removed it. Gordon didn’t like that. It gave him bad vibes. He considered putting the papers back, but instead folded them and slid them into his back pocket. He was incriminating himself possibly, but—it was over nothing. He hadn’t been involved. Last thing he needed was further trouble.

Gordon left the rest of the desk alone, feeling too nauseous to keep looking through it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a framed photo on the desk and saw Harlan with a dog and what looked like an elderly woman and he was smiling. Oh god. Just he wanted; to find Harlan was a decent person elsewhere.

Gordon opened the second filing cabinet and examined the labeling. It was divided by year, and by pure instinct he’d opened the oldest filing cabinet—the one that looked to have been dug out of a basement from the 1960s. The files in here stretched as far back as 1990, but not any further. He pulled them out and found they were separated by months. This filing back got as far as 1995. He had to pull out each folder and first check to see at the bottom if they were labeled with XNR-BM, then if no—did they have a specimen tag matching any of the three he jotted down. He laid out the small piece of paper on his lap with the specimen numbers and sat on the floor, wincing as his muscles complained.

Oh well, there was just too many files to make so many trips back and forth to the desk

Instead, he settled on the floor and refiled irrelevant files once he was done, keeping his pile of relevant files neatly organized chronologically behind him. It was boring, but not too troublesome work. He was so engrossed in it; he nearly didn’t hear the creak above him. But he did.

 _Creak. Shff. Pat. Pat. Pat. Pat._ It sounded as if something was moving away.

Gordon’s eyes darted above him, but there was nothing there. The vent still seemed empty. He was getting paranoid—no, fuck it. Maybe it was the mouse that escaped. He set down the pile of papers he was looking at and went to the desk. Gordon stood on it and reached up to the vent, and found it came away far too easily. The screws were only finger tight.

Despite his height, he was able to peak into the vent further by reaching a hand into it and pulling himself up an inch or two to see into it. It was dark in it, the light from the room his only illumination.

Gordon only had a few seconds of arm strength to see with, but what he did see was two glowing eyes.

Gordon let go reflexively, swearing and dropped back onto the soles of his feet hard, but not falling. Nothing moved from the vent to attack him, and Gordon considered peaking into the vent again. Did he imagine eyes? Maybe it was just lights.

Gordon pulled himself up and looked into the vent again.

Nothing was there. Just darkness. He strained, pulling himself up further hoping to see the lights further down the vent, but there was nothing there. Just more darkness.

Gordon lowered himself carefully and fixed the vent grate back into place, rubbing his arms and wiping dust from his hair.

Someone had been up there.

Or something.

He was sure of it.

Gordon went back to the piles of paper, but his eyes kept going to the vent. Eventually, he conceded to the sheer amount of papers and was wrapped up into far too much work to focus on anything else. He’d gotten through two file cabinets when he heard a knock on the door.

Gordon set his pile of papers down and stood, cracking his back with a groan. God, his tailbone was bruised from that. He always thought it took until like 30 to get these pains. Guess not. Tommy was on the other side of the door and he beamed at Gordon.

“Hey, want to go to lunch, Gordon?”

“Sure. Not sure what schedule I have any more,” Gordon said, and stretched his arms which protested only mildly. “Did you…”

“Hear that Harlan quit?” Tommy finished. “I didn’t have anything to do with it, if you’re wondering.”

“I didn’t say that,” Gordon quickly said.

“I know,” Tommy shook his head. He tapped his fingers on the lid of a can of soda he was already carrying. “I kind of guessed when I heard the news that what we said last night would be…as off as a cat in snow.”

“Yeah,” Gordon said. “They said the board or something—”

Gordon was cut off by the argument he could hear from the break room. There was a hell storm inside with some people already exiting to enjoy their lunch somewhere quieter. Tommy and Gordon glanced inside and saw there was a sight to see. A shorter man, despite being yelled at, was listening with no shortage of patience to a yelling Bubby.

“Dr. Coomer returned!” Tommy said.

“That’s him, huh?” Gordon said, eying the short mustached man. “What’s going on?”

“Bubby missed him!” Tommy explained, and it didn’t seem that way, but Gordon finally caught on to what Bubby was yelling.

“You didn’t tell me where you were going. You left just right after—Do you understand how that makes me feel? No warning. Just—you’re insufferable. The projects you left for me to deal with. You’re incorrigible.”

“Hello, Bubby!” Dr. Coomer greeted and held out his arms for a hug.

Bubby just stared at him. “Hello, Harold,” he said finally.

“We should talk about this later,” Dr. Coomer said amicably. Bubby nodded and seemed to realize only now where he was and the small, but remaining audience he had. They were the only ones besides Tommy and Gordon. He glowered at them.

“What’re you looking at?”

“Dr. Coomer’s back,” Tommy said. “Hi, Dr. Coomer!”

“Hello, Tommy!”

“Want to hear about the status of the projects before you left?”

“Yes!”

Bubby rolled his eyes. “You’ll see him later. No need to do this now.” A glance to Gordon. “You again,” Bubby noted. Gordon just shrugged and Bubby huffed. As Tommy started talking to Dr. Coomer that left Gordon awkwardly standing in silence with Bubby.

“So…”

“Your supervisor is gone,” Bubby said. “How does that make you feel?” He was staring at Gordon with a skeptical aura to him.

“Uh…”

“I heard he had his suspicions about you, Gordon,” Bubby said.

“Uh…” Gordon shrugged. “I don’t know. I think he was just…stressed?”

“Wrong place at the wrong time,” Bubby scoffed. He walked past Gordon but stopped and considered Gordon. “You stay at the dorm sometimes?”

“Yeah?” Gordon questioned.

“Don’t. It makes you look more…untrustworthy.” Bubby said and then left. Gordon had a hard time gauging what Bubby was ticked about, but Tommy and Dr. Coomer were wrapping up their conversation about project statuses, and Tommy gently grabbed Gordon’s hand and dragged him over to the conversation. “This is Gordon!”

“Hello, Gordon!”

“Hello, Dr. Coomer,” Gordon greeted.

“You’re organizing the files for the further analysis, correct?” Dr. Coomer questioned, and Tommy looked surprised. He glanced between Dr. Coomer and Gordon.

“Yeah. Guess with the specimen or whatever escaped and I’m like—I don’t know, still stuck over here. They’re putting me on it.”

“Please do drop off what you’ve got done! I look forward to analysis. I haven’t done it for a while, normally Tommy does it,” Dr. Coomer dutifully informed him. Tommy looked troubled and he glanced to Dr. Coomer questioningly.

“I’m…not doing analysis anymore?” Tommy questioned.

“You were taken off of Observation by the higher-ups,” Dr. Coomer said then at the frown on Tommy’s face his smile fell, and he put a consoling hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Tommy. I heard…”

“Dad,” Tommy muttered quietly. He glanced to Gordon and forced a smile. “I never liked Observation. I just…grew attached to it, I guess.”

Gordon grimaced. “Sorry. I don’t think it’s your work, I think they’re just trying to limit the people attached to it after the explosion or whatever happened,” Gordon said. Tommy nodded, but his eyes were downcast, his fingers tapping against his side, but it didn’t hide the shaking in them. Dr. Coomer sensed both men’s unease and brought up a topic change.

“I bought my first car while on vacation. It works beautifully. It has also been stripped of all technology and has a secret compartment! The drug dealer who sold it to me was very eager to get rid of it,” Dr. Coomer said happily, and Gordon laughed more out of surprise, than actually humor and Tommy glanced at Dr. Coomer.

“You got your license finally?” Tommy questioned.

“No!” Dr. Coomer said.

Dr. Coomer was just as cool as Tommy in also all the weirdest ways. They sat with him at lunch, and Dr. Coomer had the weirdest stories. His vacation had been in Vegas, but it wasn’t full of Casinos or anything like that—no, Dr. Coomer said he’d been trying to deliver documents for Black Mesa but lost them and used his vacation days to retrieve the briefcase he lost.

“It was very exciting. The men who stole the briefcase were very happy to return it for money.”

“I think…” Gordon said, eating a bite of his lunch. “I think they were slightly scared.”

“Why would that be, Gordon?” Dr. Coomer seemed slightly confused. Gordon laughed.

“You did say you entered like—what should be their private like…hideout. By punching all the people in the way. Why didn’t you just punch the people holding the case?”

“That would be theft, Gordon,” Dr. Coomer reprimanded, but his eyes were twinkling. Gordon snorted.

“I think you just ran out of energy or something. I think you would have punched them if you could.”

“I do have lots of implants I don’t get to use while at Black Mesa in normal work,” Dr. Coomer said, and Tommy snickered. He elbowed Gordon and leaned over to whisper in his ear.

“Dr. Coomer has had most of his body plants replaced with experimental Black Mesa bionics. It’s how him and Bubby met.”

“It’s also how you met Darnold,” Dr. Coomer said, having overheard Tommy’s terrible whispering. Tommy’s cheeks reddened. “Tommy was eager to accompany me to R&D when I first got my implants. He was a young whippersnapper then.”

“How long have you been here, Tommy?” Gordon questioned.

“Seven years,” Tommy said. “Not as young as you were when you first came, but close. I wasn’t really formally employed until five years ago.”

“Formally?”

Tommy rubbed the back of his neck and gestured embarrassed. “My dad. Just. Let me help out. He’s…contracted with Black Mesa.”

Gordon nodded. Tommy seemed plenty qualified, so he wasn’t going to question any of that. Dr. Coomer reached across the table and pat Tommy’s hand gently. “Tommy has worked with me many times. I’ve worked at Black Mesa for Tommy’s entire lifespan!”

“Geez. That good of benefits?” Gordon snorted. “I suppose bionics would be.”

“They are incredibly extraordinary. Too bad there’s a clause in the contract that says I cannot use them without penalty until Black Mesa cease’s operation,” Dr. Coomer reminisced. “They are removing all of my side project funding for my complete cessation of a drug cartel’s operation in Las Vegas, Nevada and claiming I lost the brief case on purpose, seeing as with bionic limbs I should not have been easily robbed at knife point.”

“Ouch,” Gordon stirred his chilling food. “Why didn’t you fight back?”

“I was in public, Gordon. It would have been rude to others,” Dr. Coomer admonished. “Black Mesa is strict about their NDA’s.” They nodded absently and Tommy sighed, resting his head on the table. Someone entered the break room and Gordon glanced up at them and waved. It was Benrey.

He leaned against their table, staring down at them. “Sup.”

“Break’s almost over,” Dr. Coomer informed. “You must be Benrey. Tommy mentioned you!”

“Yep,” Benrey popped the ‘p’ at the end of the word. “Coomer.” He turned to Tommy and Gordon, but his eyes were only on one of them. “Out here. Issue.” Tommy started getting up, but Benrey shook his head, and gestured to Gordon. Gordon raised a questioning eyebrow. He got up from the table, shooting a look to Tommy questioningly, who just shrugged.

He went with Benrey who gently grabbed his wrist and dragged him out to the hallway to a corner that was only there for aesthetic design of the building but had no rooms nearby. He let go of Gordon’s wrist and glanced around. “Need you to not. Sort. Files.” Benrey said quietly. His sentences were oddly broken, as if he wasn’t sure how to speak at the moment.” He looked off, his eyes flicking away from Gordon’s as Gordon stared at him.

“What? How do you even know?”

“Eavesdropped. If you sort the files, they’ll fire you after you’re done. Don’t finish sorting them,” Benrey said quietly.

“Why would they fire me? On what basis?” Gordon questioned. Benrey shook his head and pushed Gordon further into the corner as someone walked past. They didn’t glance at the two men, apparently too busy to notice them. It was a little awkward to be two inches away from someone in a corner being told his job was at risk, but Gordon was managing.

“They’re trying to ‘fix’ the issue. It’s why they fired Harlan. Before Tommy or I had a chance—he fucked up on his own,” Benrey muttered. He seemed stressed. And Gordon was too suspicious, but also too intrigued.

“What did you eavesdrop on—”

“Meeting.”

“How? Why?”

Benrey didn’t answer that. Instead, he shortened the distance between he and Gordon and put his hands on Gordon’s hips which was oddly intimate “Trust me. Don’t finish sorting files. Not good,” he said quietly, his voice almost musical. Gordon nodded, but wasn’t sure why he was agreeing. It didn’t really make that much sense, but he felt himself just accepting it.

“Okay. I won’t,” Gordon said, and Benrey stepped away, almost suddenly like he’d been burned, he was holding his hands close to himself. He covered his mouth, and then glanced away.

“Oops,” Benrey said to himself, and then disappeared into a room that shouldn’t—Gordon glanced around. They weren’t in that corner of the hallway anymore. They were in an entirely different hall. That shouldn’t. Gordon put his hand on the wall, a sudden headache striking him. He winced and put a hand to his head and glanced around to see where Benrey had gone. But he couldn’t make sense of it.

Gordon glanced around the hallway and recognized it as the one leading to R&D—but he’d been at hallway between the breakroom and the lab—why? Gordon brought a hand to his temple to ignore the headache and just returned to the breakroom, to throw away the food he didn’t finish. Dr. Coomer was gone, but Tommy wasn’t. He was idly staring off into space and when Gordon entered, he stood, as if shocked out of a daze.

“Gordon? You alright?”

“I’m—I think I’m tripping on something. Maybe they just painted that corner and there were paint fumes or something,” Gordon said. He blinked and adjusted his glasses. He gathered up the reminder of his plastic bowl of food and tossed it in the small trashcan. Tommy looked at him concerned and he put a hand on Gordon’s arm.

“Are you…going to be okay?”

“Yeah, just. Off. I think it’s Harlan’s weird resignation. Made my mind all off,” Gordon said.

“What did Benrey say to you?”

“Uh…” Gordon for some reason couldn’t recall the conversation clearly. “Not sure. Think I’m just going to head back to work and…” Not sort the files entirely. “Run the files to Dr. Coomer. Think I need some coffee. I am really spacing out.”

“Your eyes are really…” Tommy said quietly.

“What?”

“Dazed. You look like a deer after the truck hits, Gordon,” Tommy said.

“Huh. I feel like one too. Not sure why,” Gordon waved it off. “See you at the lab when I drop off the documents.”

Gordon gathered up the files he had gotten through and adjusted the arm full, locking the door to Harlan’s office behind him as he left. He pocketed the lanyard in his back pocket and then paused. He patted his back pocket and felt for the papers he had slid in there. He slid his fingers in, pulling the lanyard out and feeling around, but no. No paper. It wasn’t smashed down in there. It was just gone.

Did it fall out? Gordon glanced around himself and retraced his feet back to the break room but found nothing there.

Something was up, but what, Gordon couldn’t figure out.


End file.
